


Oh, If Only

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Magic (Dragon Age), Catatonic Male Hawke, Dalish Elves, Demons, Disjointed, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Heartbreaking, Heavy Angst, Hope vs. Despair, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Men Crying, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mental and Emotional Disappearance, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prince of Starkhaven - Freeform, Rated For More Mature Mental/Emotional Health Themes, Starkhaven (Dragon Age), Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: Hawke fell in love with one man at first sight, but nothing ever happened beyond him doing a bit of pining.Now, every atrocity he has witnessed or committed has piled up over six years to the point where it would break any man who cares as deeply about everything and everyone as Hawke does. It all finally reaches a breaking point when he and his companions are forced to slaughter Merrill's entire clan. Hawke slowly begins to disappear...and then, he does.Can anyone ever find him again?
Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke, Male Hawke/Sebastian Vael
Kudos: 3





	Oh, If Only

**Author's Note:**

> This story can occur any time in Act 3, depending on the order in which you do things. While it seems entirely AU, it also could be slotted/squeezed into the canon game storyline as unseen missing scenes, and then post-ending, without too much trouble.

**OH, IF ONLY**

* * *

The end was coming.

It was all happening too fast. _Just too fast_. And yet it had been a slow-burn buildup to the end, with signs and portents and hell, all of it. Yet still, Hawke felt blindsided. Perhaps he should’ve pulled his head out of his ass sooner.

He’d loved one man the entire time he’d been in Kirkwall. Just one. And that man didn’t know. Probably thought his hints and innuendos were nothing but a flirtatious nature. Most likely would never have even a sliver of a clue how much Hawke had fallen for him.

After all, he’d flirted heavily with Fenris, though he’d never bedded him. No, that honor, dubious as it might’ve been for both sides, had fallen upon Anders. Anders. Sonofabitch.

Merely five hours ago, after asking for help from Hawke and their friends to find some gross and not-so-gross ingredients for a potion that would separate him from Justice, something Hawke had known in his heart of hearts was bullshit but insisted upon clinging to anyway because he was a man drowning in the world in which he lived, wishing and hoping and praying that Fenris and Sebastian and Merrill hadn’t been right all along, that Varric hadn’t read things as easily as it seemed Hawke never could even when smacked right across the face with it.

Something Hawke could no longer ignore when Anders asked him to distract the Grand Cleric because he needed to slip sight unseen into the Chantry.

They argued, because Hawke now had to face a truth that still had tears streaming down his face five hours later, and had done since the moment he’d told Anders that no, he could not and would not be party to whatever distracting Elthina was about because he knew something was off, just _wrong_ about it. They had parted, and though Anders had indeed shown back up at the Hawke estate some hours later, it was as if he was looking at a ghost…a man who no longer existed save for the façade of skin and bone that Justice – nay, Vengeance – wore.

But life didn’t stop, it never ended, none of it did. The madness of the hornet’s nest never kept them from buzzing, flying and stinging and oh, how the bastards stung.

Life hadn’t stopped when Carver had died just outside Lothering.

It hadn’t stopped when Bethany had been taken to the Circle.

It hadn’t stopped when Mother had been kidnapped and turned into the most horrific thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

It hadn’t stopped when Anders had, true to his word, broken Hawke’s heart mere hours ago. Yet it was more than his heart that had broken. The sheer force of finding himself afloat, adrift, lost among those who’d always been so loyal to him…his throat had closed up so he could barely breathe as he, Sebastian, Fenris and Varric had made their way out of Anders’ Clinic for what Hawke innately knew was the last time.

A near panic attack, breath refusing to obey, knot settling in his stomach, wanting nothing more than to vomit his entire life up and try to find enough pieces to put something back together. Knowing there wasn’t anything to be done.

It hadn’t stopped when he’d gone home to find a vacantly staring Anders, a subdued houseful of servants and a letter from Cullen about charges against Aveline’s handling of her guards.

It hadn’t stopped when he had gone to the Chantry and done everything except get on his hands and knees and beg Elthina to leave. Beg her to believe that a conspiracy existed, that something bad, very very _very_ bad, was going to happen at the Chantry. The apostates were planning something _why wouldn’t she listen to him or Sebby_ , why wouldn’t she _leave_?

 _Why_ had he not just gone to Aveline and asked her to go arrest Anders? Cullen, Cullen trusted him, he could’ve gone to him, too. Part of Hawke knew why – because whatever Anders had intended Hawke to help him with, that he had said no to, had already been done. Those missing hours between the Clinic and the Estate had seen it done. There was nothing he could do anymore. Taking Anders into custody now would avert _nothing_ but he couldn’t even begin to fathom what it was.

Short of arresting Elthina and physically removing her – a Grand Cleric, of all things – from the Chantry grounds, _what else could he do_?

Sebastian insisted he would do everything he could to get her to leave. She refused and refused and refused until she _ordered_ Hawke to take Sebastian away to wherever he was going next.

Oh, if only it had been away from Kirkwall. Away from the Chantry and the Circle and Meredith. Away from Anders and the Dalish and the hellhole that Kirkwall had become slowly. Inexorably. Predictably.

Oh, if only he had just left everything where it was at his initial feeling, his initial emotion, the lightning that had struck through his entire being head to toe the moment he’d laid eyes on Prince Sebastian Vael outside the Chantry one warm, sunny day when desperate for coin. So what the prince wasn’t interested? So what he’d taken Andrastian vows? So what Hawke had an insatiable sexual appetite? He could have avoided his own heartbreak and quite possibly that of many, many more if only he had allowed “fallen in love” to remain at “pining” rather than pushing the envelope _like he always did_ with “moving on.”

_Oh, if only._

He was stopped from doing anything at all after his fight with Anders by Merrill asking him, as the only one she trusted to follow through, to help by accompanying her to Sundermount so she could summon her blasted demon to fix her Maker-cursed mirror. So that he could slay her if she became possessed. _Slay_ _her_.

What fucking _friend_ goes into an act, a deed, a situation, pretty much _knowing_ the only person they trust will have to fucking _kill_ them?

Hawke spent the entire climb with tears streaming down his face. The first set, for the hole left in his chest by Anders. The second, by the hole he presumed would shortly join it, in the shape of Merrill’s soul. Not one companion said a word about it. Acknowledged it. As always, his pain was his own to bear in the solitary confinement of his own mind.

And then it happened, the worst that possibly could have. Not only had Marethari taken unto herself the demon whose sights had been set on young, naïve, _stupid_ Merrill, but they had to fight her and Merrill had to _kill_ her. Her own keeper who loved her _so much_ that she was willing to _die_ just to save Merrill, and for _what_? What had any of that sacrifice served?

Half of her clan waited outside the cave and attacked. Merrill, Hawke, Sebastian and Aveline slew them all.

Hawke’s tears now stemmed from so very many smaller holes in his chest. And then they came to the clan’s camp and suddenly Master Ilen, with whom he had bantered and bartered and traded, was coming at him, face filled with rage. And Hahren Paivel who had told him stories of their histories. So many familiar faces who had all come to tolerate him as their oft-visiting _shemlen_. The entirety of what was left of Merrill’s clan showed no mercy, and when it was over, only Merrill remained.

Merrill, who was in shock.

Sebastian, who fell to his knees with hands clasped in fervent, loud, crying prayer, his own tears forming streaks down his permanently soiled mud-splattered armor. Armor Hawke suspected would never shine so brightly again.

Aveline who, eyes wide, could not seem to comprehend what she had just taken part in. How could anyone wrap their mind around having just destroyed an _entire_ _Dalish clan_?

Hawke stumbled, tears flowing so hard that an aching sob eventually managed to tear itself from his vocal cords and he cried out into the early evening air, silencing all with the echoed ringing of his anguish as it bounced from peak to peak, tree to tree. As the creaking of the aravels themselves seemed to bow in reverent silence, stopping completely like the wind was no more.

Falling amongst a stack of crates near Master Ilen’s workbench, another gut-wrenching cry tore itself bleeding from his mouth as the elf’s coin box tipped and scattered his meager earnings among the mud and grass. Hawke’s blades fell from his hands to the cold, hard, wet ground. Raindrops splashed upon the blades, elven blood traveling in rivulets back to the earth from which they so fervently believed they came. As he doubled over on hands and knees, spittle falling from his lips, tears like rivers joining the rain, snot gathering as his body wracked itself with guilt and pain and the worst kind of anguish it had ever known.

“Merrill, why,” he whispered, voice now spent in agony. “What have you forced us to _do_? What have you _done_?”

He reared back onto his knees, arms hugging his torso. It was too much; it was just too much piled upon his shoulders year after year after year after year. The Qunari, him having to fight and murder the Arishok because of a so-called friend’s deeds against them. That so-called friend disappearing to save her own neck, leaving Hawke and everyone else who’d supported her to mop up the blood she’d left in her wake.

Mother Petrice and Ketojan and the Tal-Vashoth and that stupid, greedy dwarf who’d wanted the gaatlock. All those Hawke had killed in his quest for power, his quest to help make life better for those that suffered, his quest to raise his mother out of poverty, to provide for his family. Fenris’ sister and Varric’s brother and the children left parentless and the elves treated like so much dirt in the horrific conditions of the alienage and everyone from Ferelden who’d lost _everything_ to darkspawn and never got any of it back.

People who got dragged from their homes in chains once it was learned they could do magic. Power-hungry blood mages who used up the lives of others in their bids for power and greed. Mages who suffered and died for no reason, who resorted to blood magic out of fear and knowing it would make no difference anyway. Mage families who feared to even breathe their mage loved ones’ names under Meredith’s rule. Templars who abused power, like making those who’d already passed their harrowings Tranquil. Templars with the kindness of Emeric and Thrask and men like Cullen, who were lost in their own private hells and hurt so badly inside that they couldn’t hack their way out of the forest to see the gnarled tree before them. Men like Keran who were scared and confused, and Macha, who would die in poverty and probably starve to death if her brother lost his position. Orsino, who believed change was needed but could not operate within the confines of the prison that Kirkwall had become for one and all.

Men like Anders, who could only see red after a lifetime of torture and abuse at the hands of those who held power over him simply because he’d been born able to manipulate the Fade into things both wondrous and terrible. His lover made tranquil, only to then be betrayed by him and have to murder him.

The gangs and the thieves and the wickedness and the constant, searing fires of pain and injustice and abominations and politics and religion.

Hawke could no longer scream, his open mouth crying to the great Empty Beyond in silent sobs. He doubled forward and felt for the very first time in his life as though he was completely, utterly, irrevocably and permanently _alone_. He felt like retching, he felt like dying, he felt like giving up.

And so left to the pounding rain as his secretly beloved Sebastian slumped exhausted and Aveline remained stunned and Merrill clutched the flag of her clan, Hawke rose to his feet some unknown time later, soaked to the bone and ready for the next task at hand. For Aveline still needed his help and in spite of it all, there was nothing Hawke would not do for those he loved. He would kill for them. Die for them. Some part of him hoped fervently this eve, for the latter.

But in spite of his almost feverish desire to be the best help possible for those he had chosen as his family, Hawke had begun to grow weary of Aveline ordering him about as though she’d any right to do so. “To Lowtown, I need to be there. To the barracks, Hawke, my guardsmen await.” Go here, go there. I need this, I need that. Insisting that her need to get two criminals out of the Qunari camp required him to go do it for and with her regardless of whomever else needed help in the moment.

It seemed that Aveline needed him for every career and personal advancement she’d ever had. Even to get her and Donnic together…she hadn’t been able to handle her own damn love life alone. Varric had needed Hawke and Hawke’s coin for the Deep Roads, for the mess that Bartrand had wrought upon his life, to hold his hand for confronting a traitorous brother, for investigating a haunted house. Sebastian needed help avenging his family and then he didn’t and then he wanted to confront the Harimans and then he wanted to retake Starkhaven and then he didn’t, and he’d given up his vows and then wanted them back.

And yet had cautioned Hawke about Anders. Oh, if only Hawke had listened.

Oh, if only.

Fenris needed protection, help, friendship, and yet still to this day wasn’t truly free, even with Danarius dead. It had been impossible for Fenris to confront the Tevinter slavers alone. To confront Hadriana alone. Varania. His former master. “I need you, Hawke.” Words that had filled Hawke’s mind and heart until he saw that it would go nowhere and couldn’t because Fenris would always be locked in his own private cage and Hawke knew that ultimately, there wasn’t enough room in there for him to share it for any length of time.

The kind of help Merrill needed should have been labeled as poison, though Hawke knew he wouldn’t have listened because always his damn heart ruled all. Need a weird elf knife to fix a deadly mirror? I’ll help you. Need to summon a fucking demon and have me kill you if you, you know, do what you swear you won’t but probably will? Sure, why not?

Anders needed help being loved, taken care of, feeling alive. Needed understanding. Faith. Yet was worthy of none of it. Sebby was right, he was always right. Where would that selfless throwing of himself into the abyss land Hawke once Anders’ plot was revealed? He feared to discover the answer. Even the damn viscount had asked for his help. The Arishok. The Templars. Bloody Meredith. First Enchanter Orsino. Could no one tackle or face their own problems anymore? _No one_?

“Let’s ask Hawke, he’ll do it,” seemed to be fucking Kirkwall’s motto.

But all in all, in spite of the anger that had brought all these thoughts to bear, Hawke now found himself not caring. He was, for lack of a better way to put it, running on emptiness, as if he hadn’t eaten for a month, only in a spiritual sense.

They headed to Lowtown to prove that Donnic wasn’t coddled. Beat down a couple slaver gangs. Hit some other gang in the back alley they operated from. Went on to investigate goings-on that left no doubt as to larger conspiracies afoot.

He made Fenris smile by gifting him the Blade of Mercy. A rare gift. A rarer thank you. No longer enough to make a dent in the empty, though. Once, those eyes may have touched Hawke’s soul. Now they only reminded him of hurts.

Oh, if only he could somehow make Sebastian hold him as he prayed, soft robes fluttering as he knelt before Andraste. Like maybe some of the divine perfection that oozed from the light in too-blue eyes would protect Hawke from what was to come.

He knew it wouldn’t. But oh, if only.

Whatever Anders had set in motion, it was already going. The wheels could not turn in the opposite direction. Without having any clue what was going to happen, Hawke knew he had failed. He’d failed his family. He’d failed his friends. He’d failed Kirkwall. He’d failed himself. His father. His friends. His heart.

Sebastian.

Would any of them be alive still by the time the next days had run their course?

Did he even care anymore?

Of course he did. Because he was Hawke. And no matter how empty and consumed by the gaping maw of Nothing he felt inside, the one thing he could never stop doing, was caring.

Oh, if only.

* * *

The Chantry blew up. They could only watch in horror. Sebby crying out in gut-wrenching pain for the life of the woman who’d guided and chided, loved and pushed, cajoled and cared.

Hawke stabbed his lover in the back. Watched him pitch forward off the bench. Watched the light leave his eyes. Looked at the lips he’d kissed so many times. Lips that had once smiled a secret smile meant only for him. Looked at the long, delicate fingers that so expertly teased and held. Looked at the forever-open eyes that he’d fallen into so deeply and irrevocably.

And in those moments of staring, once and for all, Hawke deadened inside.

_Empty._

Nothing.

 _They won._ Some victory.

 _So many dead._ So many lost. _So many in pain._ So many hungry.

_Nobody won._

Hawke stopped eating. _Stopped caring_ about his Mabari whining. About everyone around him faltering, _failing_ , dying, _hurting_.

Stopped living.

There was no more Light. Had the Maker ever been with them for even a moment, there was an obvious truth to be had that He was now, indeed, gone for good.

Years of being the vegetable, cared for by servants who still loved him but hadn’t heard his voice in longer than they could remember. Years of being bathed, fed, given water, taken to privy. Days and weeks and months of fading away, losing himself, wishing to be dead but cruelly forced to live still.

* * *

Until…

Blinding white, whipping open curtains. Too bright, covering his eyes to hide from sunlight invading his rooms. Reflecting from something that caused pain to see, shiny, _too bright_.

“No.” A voice he knew. _Should_ know. Somewhere from his past.

Manhandled to a warm-water tub.

Hands…soft, not calloused from hard work, but from a weapon.

“Not like this.”

_From a bow, the arrows between digits, the drawing of the string._

Running over his skin. Washing his body. Cleaning his hair. Drying his skin. Trimming his beard down to a goatee. Trimming his hair to presentable.

“You’ll not leave me now.”

Voice. The one voice that had always spoken _love_ in every world.

 _Love_ Encouragement to Fenris that the Maker loves him.

 _Love_ Even when unable to comprehend another’s decisions, always respectful, never spiteful.

 _Love_ Hawke remembered so well, somehow, those fateful words. “I know you and Anders are…it’s not my place to question, but…please. Be careful.”

_If only he had listened!_

“He’s a dangerous man. And selfish.”

Hands dressing him. He felt it. Moved sometimes, trying to help.

“Whatever he promised, don’t think he’ll ever put you above his own needs.”

The words stabbed straight through his heart from the past. Oh, if only he had listened!

This…the voice…the hands…it had to be a dream, for Hawke had failed and with failure came defeat and with defeat came hopelessness and with hopelessness, despair.

“You’re coming with me. We’re leaving this filthy, Makerforsaken place.”

They were outside. Moving. Riding. Carriage. Food. Sleeping. Two days’ by land. Finally arriving. Hawke had seen nothing of it. The rain. The sun. Trees. Other people.

_Screaming nightmares. Shrieks._

“I’ll find you in there somewhere again, Hawke. I swear it.”

_Abominations. Hate. Greed._

“Better yet, I’ll help you find yourself.”

That voice. How? _How_?

A whisper against his ear in the middle of the night. “I’m here, Love. Your prince is here.”

And for the first time: Hope.

“I’m here for you, Hawke. Forever.”

Oh, if only this were true and not another dream.

“I promise.”

_Please let it be so._

“I love you.”

_I love you._

* * *

Hawke, blinking against the darkened room. Reveling in two arms surrounding him. Understanding it all as life found its way back into him full-force. As the darkness ebbed from the edges of his mind and was replaced with the blinding white light of the shining armor, the shining eyes, the goodness and purity and clarity and depth of pure love.

He shushed the inner turmoil, turned into the warmth of a strong, hard body. His voice barely worked. It cracked. Felt like it was bleeding. It took many tries.

A soft huff of breath as his jaw worked, puffing against his nose as he inhaled. On the exhale, it was, “Sebby?”

A gasp. Arms and legs surrounding him, pulling him close. Soft lips covering his. “Maker, be praised, Andraste be blessed, Hawke? Hawke, speak to me. Anything. Again. Please.”

Darkness hiding everything.

“Please, Maker, let me hear his music again,” Sebastian pleaded.

A tear trickled out of Hawke’s eye. “Sebby,” he breathed, hands clutching at the thin sleeping clothes surrounding his Alpha and his Omega…his Beginning and his End. “You found me.” Crackling voice. It hurt to speak. “You found me.” He didn’t care. Clung to his savior, who began at once filling up all the soul-shaped holes, all the cracks and crevasses, all the pain and despair and agony with brightness.

“Hawke, I love you. Stay with me. Don’t leave again.”

Mind reeling. Everything spinning. Clinging. Touch. _Love_

“Love…Sebastian…always loved…” Hawke’s body managed to produce a sob. “Since Flint... Since…”

“I know,” Sebastian whispered, hands roaming everywhere as if to convince himself that Hawke had truly returned. “I know.”

At last, Hawke could breathe again.

“You’re in Starkhaven with me. In the castle.”

Stark…Starkhaven? With…Sebastian?

“You’re safe. Always, Hawke.”

For the first time in too long, the tears that flowed spilled from an overflowing and overpowering joy.

“Always safe now. Always safe forever.”

At last, he was home.

Oh, if only he hadn’t waited nearly seven years to find it.

Oh, if only.


End file.
